'I Cannot Believe The Decision To Ban Simona': Former Coach Mouratoglou On Halep's Ban
WTA
Patrick Mouratoglou, the former coach of Simona Halep, talks of his utter disbelief at finding out she has received a four-year doping ban.
Mouratoglou had been the long-serving and decorated coach of Serena Williams for around ten years, before making the decision to finally link up with Halep full-time but on a short term basis at that point.
Their stint together was short-lived. The pair worked together starting on the clay courts of Madrid in April of 2022. Then Mouratoglou made that call to start coaching Holger Rune while Halep was inactive from the WTA Tour.
During their collaboration, Halep managed to achieve three semi-finals on the grass at Birmingham, Bad Homburg and Wimbledon respectively, and they even won a title together in Toronto. That would prove to be her penultimate event before the positive test at the US Open just a couple of weeks later.
Mouratoglou seemed to have struck a great bond with the Romanian for the time they were working together. He has certainly been one of her biggest supporters throughout her doping controversy. He mentioned Halep's integrity during a post on social media.
"I cannot believe the decision that the ITIA has taken today in the case of Simona. I am extremely shocked and have been during the whole year by the methods and the behaviour of an organisation that is supposed to treat the players fairly and try to establish the truth. I know Simona's integrity and I have no doubt that she has never taken any banned substance."
The Frenchman also echoed some of the grievances of Halep, taking a bit of a heavy blow on the elongated nature of a process that he felt continued to be unfairly delayed.
"The process and the ITIA have been totally unfair to Simona and it is totally unacceptable. I hope that Simona will prevail at CAS which is the only tribunal that is not controlled by the ITIA. I do not believe they treated her in a way that is acceptable."
Halep is set to appeal the concluding ruling, and it seems Mouratoglou will be right there to support her every step of the way.
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